NEIL ROBERTS ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT FROM RUGBY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28929, 24 June 1959, Page 9

NEIL ROBERTS ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT FROM RUGBY

The former Canterbury and High School Old Boys back row forward, N. S. Roberts, has decided to retire from Rugby. This decision has been forced upon him through a knee injury which he suffered in the second match of the senior club competition this season, and a recent attack of influenza.

Roberts said yesterday that the knee was still troubling him a little and as it would now take him between a month and six weeks to get fully fit again, he had decided to retire.

Roberts, who is 31, has given outstanding service to his provincial and club sides and before suffering the knee injury this season would have been a strong contender for a place in the representative team.

He was given an excellent grounding in the game while he attended Christchurch Boys’ High School, although he did not manage to win’a place in the school’s first fifteen. Upon leaving school he joined the Old Boys’ club where he played first as frontrow forward in the under 18 team and then as a first five-eighths in the second grade side. In 1947 he played his first games for the senior team and he has remained in the team ever since. He has captained it since 1957. It is for his play in the Canterbury teams during the three years in which the province held the Ranfurly Shield, that he is best remembered. He first won

senior representative honours in 1952 and from that time until the end of 1957, played 43 games for the province. He would probably have reached his half-century but for a broken jaw suffered in the season of 1955. This kept him out of all representative games. He was a New Zealand trialist twice in 1956, played for the S<'uth Island in 1955 and played for the Cantabrians —which has now been classified as a first-class Club—in one game last year. This last match gave him a total of 47 first class appearances. Roberts played most of his senior and first class Rugby as a No. 8, but he also played on the side of the scrum in several games. It was in this position, when Canterbury played the All Blacks who had returned victorious from a tour of Australia in 1957, that Roberts played the game of his life. In this match he took over the attacking role and he filled it to perfection. His play was one of the highlights of the game.

He has also acquired a good reputation as a cricketer and last year led the Old Boys 3rd grade A team through a tremendously successful season to the top position in this grade. He is a versatile sportsman, his other sporting interests being golf, tennis, swimming and badminton. Roberts intends to remain a spectator for the rest of this season and next season also, but he says he does not intend to lose touch with the game. In 1961 he will either coach or take up refereeing.